State chaplain's challenges multiply

Critics doubt program's legality, leader's credentials

By Robert King, The Indianapolis Star, June 17, 2007

The Rev. Michael Latham was hired last year for $60,000 primarily to set up a network of clergy volunteers to counsel workers in Indiana's largest government agency.

But 15 months and more than $100,000 later, there is no chaplain network, and Latham's position is being challenged in court by a group that says the job violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

Latham has lined up 21 volunteers to help Family and Social Services Administration employees with the stresses of their jobs. But some clergy volunteers haven't heard from him in so long that they had forgotten about the program or assumed it had been dropped.

"We had a conference one day in October and have not heard anything from them after that," said Jim Ott, a volunteer from Anderson.

The slow start has prompted other questions about the program, including whether Latham meets the state's own guidelines for chaplains working in other settings, such as hospitals and prisons. Then there's his salary: He's the highest-paid state chaplain and has an assistant at the same time he holds two other jobs. Latham has a full-time ministry in Fort Wayne and is the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in his home city.

Latham, who was an active supporter of Mitch Daniels during Daniels' successful 2004 campaign for governor, said he had to start from scratch in his state job because there was no chaplaincy program geared toward state employees.

In addition, he said, much of his time has been spent helping FSSA's Division of Aging ask churches to launch day-care programs for the elderly.

Finally, there has been some resistance from clergy who are skeptical of a government that asks for their help but won't let them proselytize.

"I feel like there's been great progress with all the other things that we had to deal with to get the chaplain program off to a good start," Latham said.

A qualified choice?
Latham operated with little public notice until last month, when a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis challenging his position.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sued, saying a chaplain for government employees violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

A Baptist minister who preached his first sermon at 17, Latham graduated from high school unable to read, eventually getting help from tutors in his church. He never attended college or seminary and has no chaplaincy or counseling training.

That kind of resume would disqualify Latham from being considered for the chaplain's job in one of the state's five psychiatric hospitals or in Indiana's prisons, which require a bachelor's degree and a master's of divinity.

The average salary for other state chaplains is about $32,000. Latham was hired at FSSA for $60,000, given an assistant who makes $37,500 a year, issued a state car and allowed to work from Fort Wayne, where he is pastor of Renaissance Baptist Church.

Latham said that in some weeks, he has devoted up to 60 hours to his state job, delegating the duties of running his 200-member church to his pastoral assistants.

He said he has focused his initial work in Northern Indiana, making the drive to Indianapolis once or twice a week. He has ventured to Southern Indiana only twice since being hired. FSSA has offices in all 92 Indiana counties.

State government employs more than 40 chaplains, who work mostly at hospitals and state prisons. Some have called Latham's hiring "bizarre."

"He's overpaid and underqualified," said the Rev. Earl W. Hoppert, who recently retired from FSSA after 28 years as a chaplain and chaplain educator. "I don't know how he got that job."

FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob said questions about Latham's credentials are legitimate, but he said Latham was hired largely because of his real-world experience.

His time as a law enforcement chaplain in Allen County has given him a solid understanding of working with government employees, Roob said. He also likes that Latham has worked with "disadvantaged communities."

One of FSSA's main roles is determining which Hoosiers qualify for welfare benefits. "His experience was such that it made up for a lack of degree," Roob said.

In the 'people business'
Latham, 46, said he has been in full-time ministry for 26 years. Though he has no college degree, seminary education or chaplaincy training, Latham said he has "been in the people business since the age of 17."

He receives positive reviews from FSSA employees who have chatted with him in their office cubicles or confided in him in more private settings. He also is regarded as a talented speaker and an effective preacher.

But Hoppert and others say there is more to chaplaincy than talking and preaching.

Josephine Schrader, executive director of the Association of Professional Chaplains, one of the main national professional chaplaincy organizations, said chaplain training requires clergy to demonstrate they can relate to people of all faiths, even those different from their own.

Most chaplains don't maintain a church ministry, she said, but rather devote their entire efforts to their institutional employer.

Latham has said he wants to recruit clergy of various faiths to his chaplaincy program to help FSSA employees of all backgrounds. Failing that, Christian ministers will try to find rabbis, imams or others to meet the needs of other faiths, he said.

But all 21 chaplains recruited so far are Christian. At least three have ties to Latham's own church, two being his assistant ministers. He has been more successful with monthly "Focus on Faith" luncheons at FSSA headquarters, where an American Indian spiritualist and a Muslim imam have already appeared and a Jewish rabbi is scheduled to speak soon.

Given challenges to prayers in the Statehouse and Ten Commandments monuments, Latham said he expected challenges. But he is convinced that his program, despite the early obstacles and the few clergy who have joined his cause, will soon gain momentum.

"I know it has been a year, but it has been a difficult ride," he said. "It's one thing after another thing. We're just starting to get to the point where we're ready to roll." Faith in Latham

But others say Latham's lack of progress makes them wonder whether the appointment has more to do with politics than policy.

"Some may begin to question whether his job is to recruit chaplains or to help make inroads into the African-American community," said Andy Downs, director of a nonpartisan political research center based at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Latham appeared in Daniels' campaign advertisements and stood by him at a news conference criticizing minority-hiring practices of Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan. He also put Daniels up for the night during a campaign visit to Fort Wayne.

The minister was encouraged to apply for the chaplain's job by Jackie Cissell, an FSSA official who has been prominent in recruiting minorities to the Republican Party. Latham had taken an unusual stance for an NAACP official by being actively involved in a Republican campaign for governor. The organization has been more closely aligned with Democrats on the national political scene.

After Daniels carried Allen County on Election Day -- something Republicans failed to do in the 2000 race -- Latham was asked to give a benediction at one of Daniels' inaugural events.

He has taken heat from blacks for his views, Latham said. But he tells critics they must be involved with both parties.

"I don't think either party has done much for the African-American community," he said. "But I am quite pleased with our governor."

Roob also insists there was nothing political about the appointment.

He was vice chairman of the Indiana Republican Party in 2004 and heavily involved in the Daniels campaign, but Roob said he was unaware that Latham had played any role in Daniels' election.

"I ran into a lot of people over the course of the campaign," he said, "and -- no offense to Pastor Latham -- our paths never crossed."

Downs, however, points out that Daniels campaigned on greater government efficiency, and the 15-month, $100,000 investment in a chaplain network has failed to pay off.

"At some point in time, you have to wonder if that was a program that was worth keeping," Downs said. "That is not to say that there is anything nefarious going on here. It is just that some programs don't work that well."

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